SKF will focus on reliability and minimising maintenance costs at the InnoTrans fair in Berlin this September, reflecting this year's theme: 'Technology and Services to Drive Reliability' Gothenburg, Sweden, 18 August 2016: At this year's InnoTrans fair, SKF will focus on reliability issues and how it can help customers to minimise their maintenance costs and frequency of maintenance operations. SKF can offer a variety of solutions that extend the maintenance interval, to support its customers in achieving their reliable performance goals. A good example is the development of a new class of wheel tapered roller bearing units (TBUs) that are the first in the world to offer a period between overhauls that matches wheel replacement intervals, allowing the combination of wheelset and bearing overhaul in a single maintenance operation. While standard rail bearings typically require overhaul and re-lubrication well before one million km, the new TBUs are designed to run for 1.7 million km between overhauls, matching the maintenance interval of the wheelset. This has been achieved by focusing on the factors that affect lubricant life within the bearing - most significantly cleanliness and operating temperature - and considered use of SKF's proprietary X-bite® heat treatment technology on the inner and outer bearing races. Also showing will be the new SKF Centrifugal Lip Seal that dynamically switches between contacting and non-contacting sealing modes in wheelset bearing units. This novel design balances the trade-off between sealing function and friction torque, enabling lower temperature operation and supports extended maintenance intervals. Other offers on show include a the SKF Baker AWA-IV traction motor test rig with customisable user interface and specialised wheel flange lubrication systems to reduce track squeal and wear. Visitors to the InnoTrans fair (Berlin, 20th-23rd September) will find SKF in Hall 22, booth 606. Aktiebolaget SKF (publ) For further information, please contact: Press Relations: Nia Kihlström, +46 31-337 2897; +46 706 67 28 97; nia.kihlstrom@skf.com SKF is a leading global supplier of bearings, seals, mechatronics, lubrication systems, and services which include technical support, maintenance and reliability services, engineering consulting and training. SKF is represented in more than 130 countries and has around 17,000 distributor locations worldwide. Annual sales in 2015 were SEK 75 997 million and the number of employees was 46 635. www.skf.com ® SKF is a registered trademark of the SKF Group.